Former US Secretary of State George P Shultz, who played a key role in ending the Cold War under former President Ronald Reagan's administration, died at his home in California at the age of 100 on Saturday, reported CNN citing the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where he worked for over three decades.
Shultz was one of only two Americans to have held four different federal Cabinet-level positions throughout his long career and is best known for leading the State Department under Reagan. He also served as secretary of the Department of Treasury, secretary of the Department of Labor and director of the Office of Management and Budget during President Richard Nixon's administration.
"Our colleague was a great American statesman and a true patriot in every sense of the word. He will be remembered in history as a man who made the world a better place," former Secretary of State and Director of the Hoover Institution Condoleezza Rice said in a statement.
The cause of Shultz's death was not confirmed, according to CNN.
Shultz was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1989 and had been working as a Thomas W and Susan B Ford Distinguished Fellow at the Hoover Institution before his death, according to the statement, which said he worked at "Stanford nearly every day until his passing."
During his nearly seven years at the State Department, Shultz "inherited a number of foreign policy challenges, including the war in Lebanon and a ratcheting up of Cold War tensions with the Soviet Union, according to his State Department biography.
The department said his "positive responses to the overtures of Gorbachev and his Foreign Minister, Eduard Shevardnadze, and through his own initiatives, Shultz helped to draft and sign landmark arms control treaties and other agreements that helped to diminish US-Soviet antagonism."
"Under Shultz's leadership, US diplomacy helped to pave the way for ending of the Cold War during 1989," his biography further read.
According to CNN, Shultz also unsuccessfully lobbied the Trump administration to stay in the Paris climate agreement, co-writing a 2017 op-ed that argued the business case for the international accord.
"This is as close as big business gets to a consensus position... our compes are best served by a stable and predictable international framework that commits all nations to climate-change mitigation," read the op-ed.
( With inputs from ANI )
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